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Lewisboro Town Justice Marc Seedorf pleaded guilty to tax evasion before U.S. District Judge Cathy Seibel in White Plains Federal Court on Friday, Dec. 6.
“As he admitted, for years Marc Seedorf flouted his obligations under the law to file tax returns and to pay taxes," U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Geoffrey S. Berman said. "This was conduct that would be shameful for anyone, and all the more so from an attorney and a member of the judiciary. Now Seedorf awaits sentencing for his crime.”
According to the allegations contained in the Indictment:
- From 2009 through October 2019, Seedorf was justice for the Town of Lewisboro and also received income from the private practice of law.
- Seedorf did not file U.S. Individual Income Tax Returns for the tax years 2005 through 2015, despite being required to do so.
- As a result of the income Seedorf earned from 2005 through 2008, he incurred a federal income tax liability of approximately $323,000, including interest and penalties.
- As a result of the income Seedorf earned from 2009 through 2013, he incurred a federal income tax liability of approximately $164,000, including interest and penalties.
- In early August 2012, Seedorf received $1,524,116 in connection with the settlement of a civil lawsuit. At Seedorf’s request, the law firm that represented him in the lawsuit deposited the settlement proceeds into its attorney trust account, to be disbursed to Seedorf at an unspecified later date.
- In the following years, Seedorf instructed the law firm to disburse portions of the settlement proceeds to accounts other than his personal bank account, including his law firm’s operating account, his law firm’s attorney trust account, and his brother-in-law’s personal account, in order to disguise the source of funds he used to make payments to the IRS and other creditors, and the existence of the remainder of the settlement proceeds.
- From January 2010 through June 2013, the IRS attempted to collect Seedorf’s 2005 Through 2008 tax liability, including by mailing letters to Seedorf and requesting documents and records from Seedorf, who failed to provide any records to the IRS or make any payment toward Seedorf’s 2005 Through 2008 tax liability.
- In June 2013, after the IRS initiated a process to place a levy upon an investment account held by Seedorf, he instructed the law firm to wire $400,000 of the settlement proceeds to his own law firm’s attorney trust account, from which he then paid his outstanding 2005 Through 2008 tax liability.
- During a conversation with an IRS revenue officer concerning the source of these funds, Seedorf falsely stated that he had borrowed the funds from his own law firm’s trust account.
- During a December 2014 IRS interview, an IRS revenue agent asked Seedorf whether he had received any non-taxable income during the period from 2009 through 2013. During the interview, Seedorf never disclosed the 2012 lawsuit settlement or the existence of the more than $540,000 of settlement proceeds that remained in Law Firm-1’s attorney trust account at that time.
One count of tax evasion carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
Seedorf is scheduled to be sentenced on March 24, 2020, at 2:30 p.m.
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